Build and run an app on simulator using xcodebuild

Question

I have the following goal to achieve: build and run an .app application using xcodebuild and ios-sim.

I'm using the following script to build the application.

xcrun xcodebuild \
  -scheme $XCODE_SCHEME \
  -project $XCODE_PROJECT \
  -configuration Debug \
  -destination generic/platform=iOS \
  -derivedDataPath \
  build

Then for running it, I'm using

ios-sim launch MyApp.app/ --devicetypeid "iPhone-6-Plus, 9.1"

Each time I receive the following message:

Program specified by service does not contain one of the requested architectures: ?

What is happening, that the app doesn't run?

Note: if I run the second command (ios-sim...) against the .app built from Xcode (the one contained in derived data) the procedure works fine.

Solution

Ok. Figured out the issue.

You need to specify the correct destination. For example.

xcrun xcodebuild \
  -scheme $XCODE_SCHEME \
  -project $XCODE_PROJECT \
  -configuration Debug \
  -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 6 Plus,OS=9.1' \
  -derivedDataPath \
  build

In this way Xcode will create the folder (called build) containing your products (in particular look at Debug-iphonesimulator). The build dir is created within the dir you are running the xcodebuild command.

Now you can point that folder in order to run the ios-sim command (see ios-sim for more references) or simctl (see iOS 8: Building custom simulators and Build And Run iOS Apps In Commmand Line for more info).